Types of Publication

Scientific Journals

The scientific journal was invented in the mid-1600's as a means of speeding
scholarly communication: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
As science grew, so did the volume of literature and the specialization
of journals. Today there are over 100,000 scientific journals.

Types of Journals

Journals vary widely in degree of specialization, from

Nature; Science

Very broad, covering all of science (more or less...)

Journal of the American Chemical Society; Physical Review Letters

Covering all of a major section of science, such as chemistry, biology
or geology.

Journal of Organic Chemistry; Biochemistry

Covering a major subsection of science, such as organic chemistry or
solid state physics

Biological Mass Spectrometry; Fullerene Science and Technology

Covering a highly specialized area of research.

Types of Journal articles

News and reviews: Science News; Chemical & Engineering News

These magazines specialize in short summaries of "hot" current research,
usually in language aimed at the non-specialist, written by professional
journalists (with some scientific background) rather than by professional
scientists.

Major reviews: Accounts of Chemical Research; Chemical Reviews

These journals specialize in longer articles summarizing the research
in a particular field, usually over a specified chronological range. These
are generally written by scientists who are expert in the field.

Major original papers: Journal of the American Chemical Society; Tetrahedron

These journals (the majority of scholarly journals) carry full-length
articles on original research.

Brief communications: Tetrahedron Letters, Physical Review Letters

Some journals specialize in rapid publication of short announcements
of research results.

Mixtures of the above: Science; Nature

Some journals carry several or all of the above types of articles.

Peer Review

The majority of scientific journals publish peer-reviewed articles,
also called refereed articles.

In these journals, the editor sends submitted articles out to persons expert
in the field of the article.

The referee comments on the article and the research it presents.

The editor then decides whether to accept the article as is, send it back
to the author for revision, or reject it outright.

Reviewing helps uphold scientific standards, but it adds to the delay between
research and publication -- often a year between submission and publication.

Technical Reports

Technical reports are an outgrowth of government-funded research.

In return for funding, the government expects regular progress reports.

These reports are published through the National Technical Information
Service (NTIS) to give the public access to funded research.

Why use technical reports?

They often have information before it appears in journal form -- but they're
not peer-reviewed.

Sometimes they contain data which appears nowhere else.

Accessing Technical Report Data

NTIS indexes their own technical reports -- index available on CD-ROM (1983-pres.);
online (1969-pres.); fiche (1964-present) and in print.

Some agencies are putting up technical report indexes, or even the reports
themselves on the Web

Chemical Abstracts indexes technical reports...based on the NTIS indexes,
so the indexing is more detailed for chemicals than the original NTIS indexing,
but more lag time and the indexing is less detailed than CA give to journals..

Technical reports are identified by report number, e.g. AD-A 211653, or
DE90-006464. Some reports have more than one report number assigned. The
user may have to check the NTIS indexes to verify the report number.

Reports are available at Government Depository libraries across the courntry.

Conference Papers

Papers presented at a conference are often the fastest way of publishing
hot new information.

But conference papers are often hard to locate in print; indexing can be
slow, and they are not refereed in most cases.

Accessing Conference Papers

Papers may be published as part of a journal, as a special monograph, or
as part of a monographic series. Conference proceedings can be difficult
to locate in an online catalog. If your catalog allows keyword searching,
use significant words from the information ON THE CONFERENCE (conference
editors, location of the conference)

Dissertations

Dissertations and theses are a major form of academic publication.

They often contain information, especially experimental detail, not reported
elsewhere, or reported much later.

Accessing Dissertation Information

Dissertation Abstracts International (DAI, published by UMI)
indexes most North American and many European dissertations.

Patents as information sources

sources of legal information - who owns the right to manufacture a given
invention in a given country.

sources of business information -- competitive intelligence -- What
companies are working in a given field? Who are the prime inventors or
experts in a field?

sources of technical information.-they give the necessary information to
replicate an invention.

What may be patented?

Machines -- includes means of production and consumer goods.

Manufactures -- mainly consumer goods

Designs -- e.g. packaging, decoration

Plants -- agriculture, horticulture

Processes -- including chemical ones

Compositions of matter -- i.e. chemical substances

Requirements for patentability

Novelty - The invention must be "new"; not existing in "prior art".

Unobviousness -- The invention must not be obvious to an observer
"skilled in the art".

Utility -- The invention must be useful. You can't patent a compound;
only a use for a compound.

Disclosure of patent information

The patent application must contain:

Explanation of the utility of the invention

Enough detail so that someone "skilled in the art" could reproduce it

Indication of the "best choice" if more than one alternative is described.
(This frequently comes up in chemical and drug patents.)

Patents on the international level

Patents are a government monopoly, so an inventor must apply in each country
where such a monopoly is desired. Exception: European Patent Office allows
application in multiple European countries at once. World International
Property Organization (WIPO) streamlines application in multiple countries.

Different countries have different rules on patentability and time of disclosure.

Patent laws are converging somewhat, due to the most recent General Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs (GATT)

Chemical Patents and Markush Structures

Chemical patents often have claims made for a whole family of compounds.
These are called Markush claims, after the first inventor to successfully
claim a generic structure. The inventor need not have tested or even prepared
all members of the family -- just make a chemically plausible claim of
equivalence.

Accessing Patent Information

Chemical Abstracts indexes patents with "new" chemical information, but
only the first version received if the patent has been applied for in multiple
countries. Fairly good detail on chemical information in patents.

IBM has a free Web site for US
patents at http://www.patents.ibm.com/ibm.html.

Questel/Orbit has a commercial site (QPAT)
at http://www.questel.orbit.com/patents/welcome.html, with links
to lots of patent information on the Web.

Chemical Abstracts Service has a commercial site (Chemical
Patents Plus) at http://casweb.cas.org/chempatplus/ which adds
CAS indexing to full-text chemical patents

Derwent's World Patent Index collects all patents for the same invention
into "patent families" and provides excellent indexing. For more information,
see the Derwent web site at http://www.derwent.com.

The UCSB Library will order copies of patents for students, faculty and
staff.

Electronic Publishing

Electronic publishing, through listservs, bulletin boards, electronic archives,
and the World Wide Web, is of growing importance to the scientific community.
Starting with tightly knit research areas, where the latest information
is vital (e.g. particle physics), electronic publishing is spreading to
all areas of science.

Types of Electronic Publication

Bulletin boards (BBS)

Dial-up systems, often devoted to single topics.

One of the earliest forms of electronic networking.

Listservs

Use e-mail to communicate.

Access by subscription

May be moderated; usually informal exchange of information.

May receive individual messages, or digests of a given period of time.